Burton Collins Movies

Whenever there's a TV movie about a "lone holdout" juror, you can bet that reality will be left behind at the front door. Killer Among Us is no exception. A Different World's Jasmine Guy plays a doubting jury member on a homicide case. She not only believes the defendant innocent, but suspects that the foreman of the jury, played by Dwight Schultz, is the guilty party. To make a long story short, which the scriptwriter didn't, Guy ends up being stalked by the real murderer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Based on a true story, Dummy stars LeVar Burton as Donald Lang, a deaf-mute teenager accused of killing a prostitute. Paul Sorvino co-stars as Lowell Myers, the hearing-impaired public defender who takes Burton's case. The court, deciding that Lang is incompetent to stand trial, orders the boy to be shunted away to a mental institution. Doggedly following the evidence trail, Myers argues for "due process" in the treatment of his client. While the film's ending is upbeat, real life does not always turn out so well, as the ironic closing title (which details what has happened to Burton's character since this case was resolved) demonstrates. Initially telecast May 27, 1979, Dummy was adapted by Ernest Tidyman from his own book. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This romantic, melancholy twist on the Frankenstein formula stars Peter O'Toole as Professor Harry Wolper, a lonely eccentric who has dedicated decades of research to cloning his long-dead wife Lucy from a culture of living tissue. To this end, he enlists the services of likeable Graduate assistant Boris (Vincent Spano), who is initially baffled by the professor's endless rants about God, Science and "The Big Picture." After Wolper posts bills seeking a human egg donor, his wish is granted by the vivacious young Meli (Mariel Hemingway), in whom the professor soon discovers a more willing convert to his grand design... and perhaps a love more immediate and real than the one he lost. Boris eventually manages to come around to "The Big Picture" himself when Wolper points him in the direction of another graduate, Barbara (Virginia Madsen). Despite opting for a platonic relationship to better determine if they are ideally matched, Boris and Barbara soon fall deeply in love, realizing that they are soul-mates as the professor had predicted. Tragedy strikes, however, when a brain hemorrhage renders Barbara comatose, and Wolper's nemesis Dr. Sid Kuhlenbeck (David Ogden Stiers) persuades the university to shut down Harry's private cloning laboratory. Meli forces Wolper to choose between her love and his misplaced longing for his dead wife... and his answer is suddenly made clear when he witnesses Boris's heartfelt determination to bring his own true love back to the land of the living. Written by Jeremy Leven (based on his own novel), this is a flawed but engaging comedy which proves that a well-written story can incorporate traditional science fiction elements as more than a mere plot device and actually enhance the humanity of the characters. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide

Inspired by a true story, Prince of the City stars Treat Williams as a Manhattan detective who agrees to help the US Department of Justice weed out corruption in the NYPD. Williams agrees on the assurance that he'll never have to turn in a close friend. Wired for sound, Williams almost immediately stumbles upon a police conspiracy to smuggle narcotics to street informants in order to insure cooperation. While this might be condonable in a stretch, the fact is that the many cops are using the drugs on their own, and are also highly susceptible to bribes. Williams gets the goods on the miscreants, but in so doing he breaks the "code" and becomes a pariah to his fellow officers. As we learn in the unsettling final scene, Williams will always be considered a "fink," even by honest cops. Prince of the City is too long for its own good, but its opening expository sequences and its final twenty minutes more than compensate for the duller stretches. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide